30 28th July 2012 antiquarian books Truly Grimm fairy tales featuring horror, violence... and tedium continued from page 29


children. Philologists and folklorists, the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm spent much of their lives working as librarians in the Ducal Library at Kassel, but in 1806 they began inviting storytellers to their home and writing down the tales they heard. Popular myth has it that the tales were


told by local peasants, but it seems that many of their informants were middle class or even aristocratic. In 1812 they published their first


collection of 86 German fairy tales and followed this up two years later with a second volume of 70 tales – all presented in pedagogic fashion with faithful renditions of what they had heard, not dressed up for children, as the brothers saw the work primarily as an educational manual. The awkward narrative style – and the


fact that some tales appeared in several versions – meant it had limited appeal, while the horror and violence of some tales proved off-putting to others, and only a few copies of the original print run of 900 copies of the first volume were sold. Though more carefully edited, the


second volume sold as poorly as the first and it was not until 1819 that a second edition, rewritten and adapted for children, brought some success. Bound in period half sheep over black


painted boards, the two volumes of 1812 [-13] and 1815 seen in New York lack five leaves of notes and two text leaves (the latter supplied in facsimile), but only two copies have come to auction in over 30 years – both within the last 12 months. It was last July that I reported that


someone had seized a once-in-a-lifetime British & Irish Book Auctions Jul 25* Literature Section: Olympics Sale, Bonhams (020 7447 7436)


Jul 25*@ Literature Section: Kirch Airship Memorabilia Colln Pt.II, Wallis & Wallis - Lewes (01273 480208) Jul 25@


Jul 26@ Library of Birmingham Medical Institute. Pt.II, Dominic Winter - Sth. Cerney (01285 860006) Jul 26*@ Jul 26*@ Jul 26@


Books, Maps & Documents, Dominic Winter - Sth Cerney (01285 860006) 21-lot Book Section, Eastbourne Auctions Rooms (01323 431444)


12-lot Book Section, J.P. Humbert - Towcester (01327 359595)


Jul 26-27@ Jul 27@ Jul 27*@ Jul 27*@


Jul 31*@ Jul 31*@ Aug 2@ Aug 3@ Aug 3*


Aug 3*@ Aug 4*


Antiquarian & General Books, Maps, etc, Thomson Roddick Medcalf - Carlisle (01228 528939) Antiquarian & General Books, Maps, Ephemera, Keys - Aylsham (01263 733195) 22- lot Book Section, Rendells - Ashburton (01364 653017) 12-lot Book Section, Charterhouse - Sherborne (01935 812277) 24 Box & Shelf Lots Books, The Auction House - Bridport (01308 459400)


Jul 28*@ Literature Section: Titanic/Ocean Liner Memorabilia, Henry Aldridge - Devizes (01380 729199) Jul 31*


Book Section, Cotswold Auction Company - Cirencester (01285 642420) Book Sections, Stacey’s - Rayleigh (01268 777122) Book Section, Lawrences - Bletchingley (01883 743323)


Book Section: Railwayana Sale, Thomson Roddick Medcalf - Carlisle (01228 528939) Antiquarian & General Books, Ephemera, Bellmans - Billingshurst (01403 700858) Book Section, incl. Cornish, Sporting, Railway, Truro Auction Centre (01209 822266) Sports Memorabilia, Special Auction Services - Newbury (01635 580595) Book & Ephemera Section, Batemans - Stamford (01780 766466)


Sales marked with an * are those in which books and ephemera form part of a larger sale. Sales marked @ are viewable on antiquestradegazette.com. Auctioneers are asked to send details of specialist book sales, as well as those sales that may contain significant book and ephemera sections, to: Ian McKay Tel: (01795) 890475 • ianmckay1@btinternet.com


chance in securing a Grimm first at $170,000 (then £105,250) – again at Sotheby’s New York. That copy was also a second issue, but complete within its broken and stained but period binding. On the look-out for older material, I


was initially drawn to a June 8 sale held by Alde of Paris, in which a copy of Pretty Little Games for Young Ladies and Gentlemen... sold at €11,000 (£8895). Closer inspection, however, revealed


that the ‘Pictures of good old English Sports and Pastimes’ that illustrate this


Left: featuring one of Philip Dadd’s illustrations to the book, the dust jacket is chipped with loss, but it is over ten years since the last jacketed copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s William Tell Told Again appeared at auction and this one made a record £2200 at Bloomsbury Auctions on May 15.


Above: ‘Who should come in but the Golliwog’, an original watercolour illustration by Honor Charlotte Appleton for Henry Cowper Cradock’s Where the Dolls Lived of 1919. Sold for £2400 by Cheffins of Cambridge on July 5.


work (dated 1845 but actually issued in 1872) are in fact rather rude and were produced some years earlier, for limited distribution among his friends, by Thomas Rowlandson, who died in 1827. ‘New Feats of Horsemanship’ (a


plate that can be found by curious readers at http://photo.auction.fr/c/0/3/ rowlandson-thomas-pretty-little- games-1337350519356462.jpeg) shows very clearly that these Pretty Little Games... were aimed at a very different readership. Another French sale, ‘Bande Dessinée


– Comics’ at Sotheby’s Paris on July 4, saw little more than a quarter of the 92 lots sold, but Tintin continues to flourish. A copy of the first of the classic Hergé


albums, Tintin au pays de Soviets of 1929, made €40,000 (£32,000) and one of the original black and white artwork for L’Etoile Mystérieuse, as first published in traditional multi-image form in Le Soir in 1941, was bid to €195,000 (£156,000). More on these and other comics and


comic artwork will appear in a later issue, following the Heritage Auctions sale of July 26-28 in New York. The comic market in the USA


continues to boom and a record-breaking total of around $9m has been predicted for this sale.


BUYER’S PREMIUMS


Above: the very first Tintin album, sold for €40,000 (£32,000) by Sotheby’s Paris.


Alde, Paris: 20% Bloomsbury Auctions, London: 22% to £250,000, 12% thereafter Bonhams, New York: 25% to $50,000, then 20% to $1m, 12% thereafter Michael Bowman, Newton Abbot: 15% Cheffins, Cambridge: 17.5% Christie’s & Sotheby’s, London: 25% to £25,000, 20% to £500,000, 12% thereafter PBA Galleries, San Francisco: 20% Sotheby’s, New York: 25% to $50,000, 20% to $1m, 12% thereafter Sotheby’s Paris: 25% to %20,000, then 20% to %800,000, 12% thereafter Dominic Winter, Sth. Cerney: 19.5% NB: premiums may not apply or have been set at different levels where prices from sales of previous years are quoted. Exchange rates are those in effect on the day of sale.


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